Loathing President Bush is an art form in Berkeley, a disgust so pointed that 3,500 people recently gave a standing ovation to a trio of best- selling Bush-bashing authors -- comedian Al Franken, economist Paul Krugman and ex-Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips -- before they uttered a word onstage.

Unbeknownst to most in the sold-out Berkeley Community Theater audience, they were beta-testing a show that East Coast promoters are developing into a national barnstorming tour. The promoters were impressed; dates in New York and New Haven, Conn., are expected to be announced in the next week on what's being billed as the "Rolling Thunder" tour.

Bookers in Los Angeles and Chicago are gauging the reception of the unorthodox concept -- three disparate authors, fronted by three different publishers, united only by their common pounding of the leader of the free world -- before scheduling local versions.

While political commentary wrapped in entertainment harkens back at least to the 1950s and such comics as Mort Sahl, the concept has largely been hibernating until recently, dismissed as box-office death for those to the left of Rush Limbaugh. That attitude began to change last fall, when best- sellers by Franken and filmmaker Michael Moore uncovered an appetite for Bush- bashing entertainment.

Propelling it forward are performers who are willing to sacrifice ego and cash for the cause; the authors at the Berkeley show waived five-figure speaking fees.

But while the progressive faithful are thrilled with the books, music and performance art that's bubbling up, the real test will be whether such political entertainment can convert voters in the "red states" that supported Bush over Al Gore in 2000.

"The truth is, I don't know. I know writing for journals with a circulation of 3,000 won't do it," Krugman, a New York Times columnist, said before last Sunday's Berkeley show. Facetiously, he added, "And writing for the New York Times only gets the latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, sushi-eating types. What we really need to do is reach out and grab people."

The barnstorming tour is the latest lapel-grab from progressive voices. Franken, the Emmy-award-winning writer, will host a program on a soon-to-be- launched liberal radio network. His book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," is in its 21st week on the best- seller list. This past week, it was joined by Phillips' "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush."

Krugman's "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way" was a best-seller for more than two months last fall.

The trend is turning up in other media as well. MoveOn.org, the Berkeley- birthed grassroots online organization, peppered CNN all week with the winner of its "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest, chosen from more than 1,000 submissions created by nonpoliticos and judged by hipsters such as musician-actor Jack Black.

In the Bay Area, activists are trying to jolt armchair liberals into action with a little entertainment.

A show featuring comedy, music, film and "censored truths," dubbed "Behind Every Terrorist Is a Bush," is set for next Sunday at the Herbst Theater. In April, the San Francisco punk rock label Fat Wreck Chords will release "Rock Against Bush," a compilation of political songs, and stage a tour by several bands.

The next gig in that series, however, won't be in a red state. It will be in Berkeley.

"Club owners are a hard nut," said the series' co-creator, Infotainment Posse's Michael Ward. "They're going to have to be convinced that it's not a dog show, so I'm going to have to show them this is going to work on a commercial level."

Even the people behind the Franken-headlined event in Berkeley were reluctant to call it "entertainment." One preferred "intellectual resistance."

"I see this as more about politics and a movement than just entertainment, " said Drake McFeely, chairman and president of W.W. Norton and Co., the New York outfit that published Krugman's book and united the three authors in Berkeley. "If this keeps drawing 3,500 people, we're going to try to keep it going as long as we can. If we can get four or five dates out of this, I'd be overjoyed."

Commercially, the Berkeley audience at Sunday's author show gobbled up everything the three authors tossed them.

"It was really entertaining," said Chris Vibbets, a 30-year-old Forestville musician, as he waited for Franken to sign his book afterward. "It's a way to convey something political to people who would otherwise not want to deal with politics."

The audience jeered mentions of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and Nixon attorney general John Mitchell and cheered nods to filmmaker Moore. Confident his audience was conversant with the new book by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, which compared Bush to a "blind man in a roomful of deaf people" during cabinet meetings, Franken opened by saying O'Neill "was going to come on as a surprise guest. But earlier today, he was murdered."

The crowd roared. Then again, this was Berkeley.

"I don't know if it's the kind of thing that will play beyond the universities. I don't see it playing in, say, Georgia unless it's at a college, " said Steven Barclay of Petaluma, an agent for 40 top national lecturers including Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and humorist David Sedaris. He is not affiliated with any of the authors.

"Part of me likes to believe it could, though," Barclay said, noting that many in his stable have toured the Deep South. "You could find audiences for (progressives) everywhere."